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Comments 110301 to 110350:

  1. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    #39 "And I echo what kdkd said in #31: all this stuff can be estimated without estimating this 'equilibrium TSI'." No it can't muoncounter. All the 'anthropogenic forcings' in Fig 2.4 IPCC AR4 and repeated by Dr Trenberth's famous paper in Figure 4, are relative to a baseline of 'zero' in AD1750. The +0.12W/sq.m for 'natural' Solar forcing is baselined to what? Was it zero in AD1750? If it was not or we don't know; then it should not be added and subtracted from the AG forcings based on 'zero' in AD 1750. Figure 1 from this thread (1713-1996) seems to suggest a baseline TSI at 1365.5W/sq.m, but who is to suggest that the solar forcing was 'zero' in AD1713 given the complex orbital cycles which vary the Earth's exposure to the sun over interglacial time scales. Is 1365.5W/sq.m the 'zero' baseline? The bit you don't seem to get is that the energy accumulation of the Earth system does not necessarily stop when the TSI is flat. This energy is the integral of the 'forcing' in W/sq.m wrt time represented by the area under the forcing curve which rises linearly with time elapsed. A constant 0.12W/sq.m forcing over one year is 20E20 Joules, which over a century is 2000E20 Joules. 5-6E20 Joules/year covers all the arctic ice melt, land ice melt and land heating (according to Dr Trenberth). So if for example the Earth was warming in AD1713 at a small Solar forcing of say 0.06W/sq.m (half the current IPCC Solar forcing number), and we assume the same shape of the TSI curve since then is offset by an extra 0.06 x 4 /0.7 = 0.34W/sq.m then that would add an extra 10E20 Joules to the Earth system for nearly 300 years which is an extra 3000E20 Joules - a big number - most of which must go into OHC.
  2. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Except, Eric, that your mob have no coherent moles, & so instead create illusory ones to keep everyone off balance. The reality is that your claims are not supported by the available evidence. The solar component is a major part of the energy balance of the planet, & can't be casually dismissed as you try to do, that we're still getting warming *in spite* of a significant decline in sunspot activity suggests that something else-very significant-is at play. Remember that we've had a downward trend in sunspot activity for THIRTY YEARS, yet each decade has been, on average, warmer than the decade before over that entire period. Even when sunspots are almost non-existent we still get a warming trend-where we actually should see-if anything-*cooling* (the correlation between PDO & warming for the last 30 years is less than 2% btw). Bottom line-accelerated CO2 warming with further acceleration/deceleration due to natural influences.
  3. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    152. Ken Lambert: You state, "Dr Trenberth reckons on a yearly imbalance of 145E20 Joules. He puts 2E20 Joules into land heat up, 1E20Joules into Arctic sea ice melt, and 2-3E20 Joules into Total land ice melt." Have Dr. Trenberth's "reckonings" been peer reviewed? In the contest of your statement, does "land" include both the lithosphere and the bioshpere? Does "land" also include surface freshwater?
  4. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    RSVP, it doesn't matter if you show a whole coherent community of moles, they will just pick one and whack it.
  5. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Marcus (#11), it is best to take Riccardo's advice (#26) and give a complete picture by considering all the evidence and potential factors. One piece of evidence you left out was a deceleration of warming shown by satellite temperature measurements. Since they measure the troposphere rather than the surface they depict the strong 1998 El Nino nicely (much stronger than Karl realized when he wrote his report which turned out to be wrong). That same measurement shows that the recent El Nino was weaker (smaller relative peak) yet the running average will likely exceed 1998. That means there is warming from 1998 to present, likely from steady (not accelerated) CO2 warming. You considered only one solar factor of many and no terrestrial factors. One terrestrial factor you left out was positive PDO which may have changed to negative around 2008. The result of that factor is less heat in the ocean and more in the atmosphere where your surface measurements were taken. According to the Pielke thread that also confirms the deceleration in warming based on total heat in the ocean atmosphere system. Bottom line is steady CO2 warming with acceleration and deceleration due to natural influences.
  6. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Albatros, Ned, Badgersouth, Rob Honeycutt: You might want to check the numbers from my early Post #14 "Dr Trenberth reckons on a yearly imbalance of 145E20 Joules. He puts 2E20 Joules into land heat up, 1E20Joules into Arctic sea ice melt, and 2-3E20 Joules into Total land ice melt. Thats a total 5-6E20 Joules/year out of 145E20 Joules of supposed imbalance which must go somewhere in the system. Total ice melt and land heat up is only 4%. So where is the other 140E20 Joules/year? Dr Trenberth accounts for only 20-95E20 in the oceans (a wide range), 16E20 in reduced TSI (which should probably be deducted from the 145 to start with), and a "residual" of 30-100E20 Joules which is unaccounted for. It could be in the deep oceans or 'exited to space' - ie. it was never there to start with." Also go and read Dr Trenberth's Aug09 paper: "An imperative for climate change planning: tracking the Earth's global energy" here: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf Ned - you are right about ice melt being a small energy sink; only 3-4E20 Joules/year for all arctic and land ice melt when the purported imbalance being absorbed in the Earth system is 145E20 Joules/year. According to the above paper: Global SLR is supposed to be about 2.5mm/year of which 2.00mm is mass or ice melt water and about 0.5mm is thermosteric rise from thermal expansion. Have a look at "Sea level rise the broader picture" here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=80&&n=339 and particularly BP#19, HR#65, KL#68,#80. Dr Tom: Yes Argo is not designed for global OHC data collection and has been pressed into this service for want of a better system. It surely is vastly better that XBT and other sampling methods - but I think that Dr Pielke agrees with me and others on this blog thread that the best method would be a system of tethered buoys whic could read the same tile of the ocean and all collect at the same time (1200hrs GMT on the 1st of each month if you want seasonal and yearly snapshots giving almost continouus OHC measurement) How you transmit data from tethered buoys without them surfacing could be a difficult problem, and if you try a surfacing system similar to Argo with a 2000-3000m tether - there could be some difficulty there as well - but surmountable I would expect.
  7. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Roger, the point is how many time slices do you need spread over what period. True, the thermal inertia of the upper ocean implies that you do not need a continuous time record, but that assumes that currents moving large amounts of mass and energy, especially vertical ones, will not change rapidly. If you think four years is enough then you have to explain every wiggle that happens on a scale of a year or less. Further, as the bunny pointed out above, ARGO is NOT measuring the thermal content of the ocean, but the thermal content of the UPPER ocean and by differencing, the flow of energy into and out of the upper ocean from above (atmosphere) and below (lower ocean). Since differencing is really subject to falsification by random noise, it appears to Eli that you are selling a McGuffin.
  8. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    dana1981 #13 "Been there, done that, mole whacked" Is that a scientific attitude? ...and is it truely scientific to assume inherent solar stability into the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_variable_stars
  9. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    The point is not to find the single cause (which does not exist) that overall drives the climate, there are several known factors that in the short or long term influence it. Many (not all) skeptics use these factors to claim that there's more than CO2, which we all know. What they do not do is give a complete picture of the behaviour of our climate "glueing" together all the pieces in a coherent framework. In this way they are free to "attack" any single piece, not being bounded by the consequences on the other aspects of the large picture, as evidenced by dana81 in this post. This is why it's often pointeless to discuss with them and why i do not think it's appropiate to call them skeptics, although i still use this term for "political correctness".
  10. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Sorry, should have added to the above.. .. For the conspiracy theorists their arguments are *not* contradictory (let alone hypocritical, which the average reader might think). When a theory based argument supports AGW, theory is a bad thing (it's just guesses, incomplete, chaotically unpredictable etc. etc.); when a theory "demolishes" AGW it's True, reliable, precise... why isn't this contradictory - because the criteria for support of the statement is not what most people would consider "fact", the criteria is conformation or not of their USP (Ultimate Sacred Postulate, ref: Rappaport). Same with climate history - proxy data is evil when it shows we're in exceptional circumstances, but the fountain of truth when it shows that the temperatures have been warmer than today at some past time. It matters not that this is all the same methodology, the same data, worked with and understood by professionals as much as Those In The Know...
  11. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    dana1981 If I calculate a 1% increase in albedo and a constant TSI, I get dF = dA*TSI/4=2.4 W/m^2, comparable to the effect of CO2. Is constant albedo an assumption, the result of climate simulations or do we have measurements of it? Please don't misunderstand, I do not criticize your excellent post, only a (silly?) question.
  12. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    I think part of the problem here is that there are several, overlapping, schools of "skepticism". Some are genuinely confused by the science or mislead by the popular press. For these folks skepticalscience.com is an excellent resource. Others are political "reactionaries", for lack of a better word. They just don't like Big Government, feel that the world is a bit out of control etc. For these folks, this this site may tip them or not depending on how important their adherence to their political agenda is. Evidence, for them, sits on a part with social studies of the economic affect of socialized health services or the leangth of prison sentences. It's just stuff that backups Our or Their political platform. For these folk, their agenda is clear and open. But never forget, talking to this world you are doing politics not science. There is a third school is conspiracy theorists. For these folks "evidence" is nothing to do with facts. For these folk, "evidence" - be it science papers, websites, news paper articles, enquirers etc. - is True if it supports their view and False if not. Simple as that. From this POV, sceipticalscience.com is either something "They" have put out to delude the public or something generated by "Sheep". This site will have exactly no impact on their thinking.
  13. Cornelius Breadbasket at 18:12 PM on 11 September 2010
    The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    I recently received an email from a friend that gave me a new insight into the mind of sceptics. I'd like to share it with people on this excellent forum. "When a problem becomes too great, we stop being concerned about it! This is fairly well-known psychological effect, sometimes referred to as "mortality salience". It's as if our brains can't cope with an overburden of anxiety, so we blank off the concern - shutting it out of our minds or (perversely) inventing reasons why not to worry. An example is a study undertaken of people living in a narrow valley under a dam - who might be killed if the dam burst. They questioned people in the valley about how concerned they were about living below the dam. As they got closer to the dam, they found people were more concerned, as you'd expect. However, less than a critical distance below the dam, they found people had no concern at all. It was as if one couldn't survive if you were looking up at the dam every day and worrying about it."
  14. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Roy Latham: "The reason why skeptics don't settle down and pick one dominant driver of climate is that they do not believe there is one, or even that all of the factors are known." Mainstream scientists seek to understand what is happening and accept that all factors are not known. Scientists successfully use current physics knowledge every day despite the knowledge that all factors are not known. So what's different about climate science. The difference is politics. But more to the point. Skeptics do not have a consistent explanation and aren't seeking one. A scientist wishing to improve human knowledge would seek an explanation.
  15. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    @129: Rob, Jay Wile, a creationist first, is all over the Interweb. He has a Facebook page. You will be lucky to get a response from him. @ARGO: I am not absolutely certain that everyone understands the design function, scope and limitations of the ARGO experiments. There are three float types and two sensor suites, each built by a different company, That equates to one unit, spaced unevenly, for every ~333 thousand cubic MILES of ocean. Each unit embarks on two submersion missions a month, and there are two types of missions. 20% of them profile between 1,000 and 1,500 meters. 70% profile 1,500 to 2,000 meters. The remaining 10% presumable escape their earthly masters and congregate somewhere to reproduce or disappear into fishing nets. Almost half of the oceans are more than 3000 meters deep which is also the average ocean depth. Drift measurements at a fixed are quite valuable for doing what they were designed to do. Determine drift and determine salinity while ascending, The array of profiling floats provides an attractive method for making other ocean measurements that presently lie outside the core Argo mission. These include the measurement of dissolved oxygen, nutrients, microstructure, ambient noise, measurements of biological activity and temperature and salinity measurements that differ from the standard Argo 10 day profiling mission. The Argo data system is used to handle some of these measurements (particularly dissolved oxygen) but these are not considered to be part of the core Argo mission. Similarly it is convenient to handle the data from ocean gliders and from instrumented marine mammals using the Argo data system. Though these data may be distributed by the Argo data system they also are not considered core Argo measurements. At present the Argo Steering Team views these measurements and the quality control and distribution of their data as lying outside Argo core activities. These experiments were neither designed into, nor provide the data required to postulate outside the core abilities of the instruments. In my opinion, the data discussed in this thread cannot be definitive with the present system. At minimum, a top-to-bottom probe which cycled every 24 hours and continuously measured, in addition to temperature and drift, the bottom composition, pressure, total dissolved gas load in the water and it's composition, mineral content and acidity, turbidity, composition of particulate matter, density and type of plankton and bottom-chain animals in the water column, the temperature of the top few inches of the water just below the sea-air interface and, while surfaced the temperature, speed, barometric pressure, direction, and chemical content of the air. With a brief time out to transmit the data. Practically, even if there were enough Energizer bunnies to power these things, and the money was available to build them, the only thing they would probably discover in the near-term is that the physical laws of the universe still apply to Mercury thermometers. http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Argo_design_papers.html
  16. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    You're list of five WUWT article really highlights what WUWT is about. The first 4 are reports around recently published papers or press releases of those studies. The fifth seems to be a response to a NASA GISS announcement. I'm just getting this from the title and the first few lines, somebody can correct me if they want to read all five articles. I know WUWT wants to highlight reports they think are critical of the concensus science but if you keep that in mind means its a worthwhile place to look at a range of opinions. It strikes me that WUWT isn't necessarily saying "here is the answer" in each of the articles but highlighting the rainbow of opinions in climate science. In fact I've very occasionally read articles from very pro-AGW climate scientists there. Would these guys also be included in the crackpot range of opinions on WUWT? Dana1981 why don't you ask Antony Watts for space to put a pro-AGW article on his blog, I'd be interested in seeing his reply? In many ways there is no need for consistency, everything is always changing, improving and up for debate.
  17. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Roy, it seems as though you're saying that what real AGW skeptics dispute is the value of climate sensitivity, which I agree, is a valid issue to question (although it's constrained quite well between 2 and 4.5°C for 2xCO2). However, you're missing the point that you can't one day argue that the Sun is causing global warming, the next day argue that the planet isn't warming at all, the next day that it's some unspecified "natural cycle", the next day that the temperature record is unreliable, etc. etc. These arguments contradict eachother. If you want to dispute the accepted range of climate sensitivity, then by all means go for it. But I'm simply saying that a little consistency would increase skeptics' credibility by leaps and bounds.
  18. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Oh, I should mention that skeptics acknowledge that CO2 causes global warming, as the equations of physics say. Way is at issue is where the CO2 effects are multiplied by three as crisis advocates claim.
  19. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    What skeptics claim is that climate is complex, and the effects of the contributing phenomena have not been modeled well enough to accurately predict future climate. This is in contrast to the claim that while other things drove climate in the past, nothing of consequence is driving climate now except CO2. The old-fashioned National Geographic magazine described in an article on the Arctic a couple years, unrelated to climate change, ago how the arctic ice pack receded on a regular cycle, last in the 1930s and before that in the 1800s. CO2 crisis advocates ultimately acknowledged that El Nino caused the spike in warming in the 90s. Everyone acknowledges the cold year resulting from the eruption of Mt.Pinatubo; the climate models were fudged for that one. The Little Ice Age is be well correlated with a long period of low sunspot activity, and the Medieval Warm Period with high activity. The reason why skeptics don't settle down and pick one dominant driver of climate is that they do not believe there is one, or even that all of the factors are known.
  20. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    Johnd - the energy diagram is paradoxally "instantaneous" energy flow - the values of annual averages. We tried to explain the causative relationships, but there are interdependences and a very large internal flow thanks to GHG effect that doesnt yield to some "critical path analysis". I'll try again... Solar is obviously dependent on solar output and orbital factors. Backradiation has a dependency on solar (well the ULR), but the independent knob is GHG concentration. This and surface radiation make up the large internal energy flow. These heat the surface. Evaporation and convection are largely dependent on temperature of surface - feedbacks with no way in independently change them on a global, long term scale. Surface radiation is proximately dependent on temperature but temperature will rise or drop to whatever the necessary to conserve energy. Surely that is clear? The really key point is that evaporation cannot be a forcing.
  21. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    chriscaranis: schizophrenia "commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is generally accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunction" (according to wiki) - seems a good description of what goes on at WUWT.
  22. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    The problem as I see it is that climate is very complex and as in many areas of science multiple factors may help explain a range of phenomena in different parts of the world at similar an/or different times. Pointing this out does not necessarily amount to shifting the goalposts. However, my principal gripe lies with the following: 'These kinds of flip-flops are common on Anthony Watts' blog, which had a very schizophrenic six month period...' Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness affecting around 0.5 - 1% of the population causing an enormous burden of distress to patients and families alike. Some of the best and bravest people I have been privileged to meet have had protracted struggles with this illness. I strongly protest the use of the adjective as a pejorative label for perceived incoherence in argumentation. Remember, someone reading this blog might well suffer schizophrenia or a related illness or have a loved one thus afflicted.
  23. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    #13 dana1981 at 12:59 PM on 11 September, 2010 I debunked "it's the Sun", including your UV variability argument a couple of days ago You have debunked nothing, just referenced this rather coarse model study: Science 9 April 1999 Vol. 284. no. 5412, pp. 305 - 308 DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5412.305 Reports Solar Cycle Variability, Ozone, and Climate Drew Shindell, David Rind, Nambeth Balachandran, Judith Lean and Patrick Lonergan "We used the GISS stratospheric general circulation model (GCM) a primitive equation model including parameterized gravity waves, with 8° latitude by 10° longitude resolution and 23 levels extending from the surface to 85 km (0.002 mbar). The two-dimensional (2D) model­ derived chemistry parameterization includes wavelength-dependent ozone response to changes in radiation and temperature" As for actual measurements performed all we get is this: "Observations cover less than two solar cycles, however, and were perhaps affected by the two large volcanic eruptions that occurred during the data period near successive solar maxima."
  24. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    #40 KR at 12:24 PM on 11 September, 2010 As I stated in this post, small scale fractal phenomena can be incorporated into rather coarsely gridded models if the average values are appropriately generated and dealt with. Yes, but the physics gets lost in the process. Equations governing averages can't be derived without being able to handle the true equations at all scales. Therefore you are left with some ill-founded empirical formulas. In case of water vapor simple averages are not even sufficient, no matter how you calculate the average. You also need higher moments of the distribution to get average optical depth for grid cells. Do you also have equations for those to implement them in a computational model?
  25. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Berényi - You are correct, in that different forcings have different effects. However, once they get down to W/m^2 imposed in specific levels of the atmosphere and on the ground, they are the same. And the various climate sensitivity feedbacks will act upon them. We're seeing stratospheric cooling - given that UV absorption is mostly stratospheric, it doesn't appear that UV is increasing the energies (joules) in the Earth/atmosphere system. Total solar output has varied 0.1%, UV has perhaps varied 20%, but with no discernible warming of the stratosphere. This is not a disproof of a CO2 driven enhanced greenhouse effect.
  26. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Berényi, I debunked "it's the Sun", including your UV variability argument a couple of days ago, and linked to it in this article. Been there, done that, mole whacked.
  27. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Just as one example, you can't argue that the Sun is causing global warming and that climate sensitivity is low. Solar output has only increased by about 0.1% over the past century, and the way you determine the associated global temperature change is to multiply the change in solar radiative forcing by the climate sensitivity factor Of course we can. Not all forcings are created equal. They act on different parts of the climate system and have different effects. You simply can't convert all kinds of forcings to a common currency of W/m2. For example while the overall brightness of the sun varies little indeed, it is not true for the UV portion of the spectrum. Here variability is two or three orders of magnitude higher. As the atmosphere as a whole is not transparent at most UV frequencies, this radiation gets absorbed in the stratosphere. We can of course argue over what effects this highly variable input has on the climate system, but it has nothing to do with sensitivity to other kinds of forcings, like soot pollution on snow, which increases absorption right on the surface. In popularization of science you should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. Advances in Space Research Volume 1, Issue 9, 1981, Pages 101-115 doi:10.1016/0273-1177(81)90225-8 The variability of the sun's ultraviolet radiation G. E. Brueckner "Typical values for the solar UV variability over a solar cycle are: <1% at wavelengths longer than 2100 Å, 8% at 2080 Å (continuum), 20% at 1900 Å (continuum), 70% at H Lyα, 200% in certain emission lines 1200 < λ < 1800 Å and more than a factor of 4 in coronal lines λ < 1000 Å."
  28. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    @ Eric (Skeptic), you are aware that sunspot activity for the current solar cycle (2000-2010) has been falling, & spent an extended period of time at levels unseen since the Maunder Minimum? You also know that 1998 was an aberrant year, with a peak in solar activity & the strongest El-Nino in a century producing an above average anomaly? Yet in spite of this, the average temperature anomaly for the 1990's was +0.321 degrees C (above 1961-1990 levels), wheras for 2000-2009 it was an average of +0.515 degrees C. Also, wheras the average anomaly for 1990-1999 was only 0.141 degrees higher than the 1980's, the average anomaly for 2000-2009 was 0.194 degrees higher than the 1990's. Doesn't sound like a deceleration to me-even with decreased inputs from the sun!
  29. actually thoughtful at 12:37 PM on 11 September 2010
    Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    The ARGO problems must include spacial, perhaps as well as missing heat at depth. If there is no additional heat in the well mixed top 700 meters or 2000 meters, it can't be pushing heat downwards. So if there is extra heat, it must be finding a way down to the depths that misses the current ARGO network.
  30. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    I actually don't think that it does behoove the denialists to come up with a single objection-after all, a moving target is much harder to hit, so to speak. Its harder to debunk them when they come up with a new reason daily. Also, remember that they're not directing this at people like us-who at least have tried to understand all the facts-but at the average person who elects their local politician.
  31. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Berényi - a very interesting post here. Are you arguing a particular point from it, however? I cannot tell. As I stated in this post, small scale fractal phenomena can be incorporated into rather coarsely gridded models if the average values are appropriately generated and dealt with.
  32. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    johnd - No, we're not talking about investments. We're talking about energy, and energy exchanges. 'Liquid assets' lead to inappropriate conclusions, a false analogy issue. The Earth (ground/water) radiate at a spatially averaged 396 W/m^2 rate. The air, heated by conduction, convection, latent heat, and primarily IR, radiates at a rate of 324 W/m^2, based entirely on it's temperature and the thermal spectra of the gases involved. That reduces the ability of the ground to radiate heat, otherwise it would reach (rough) equilibrium at a lower temperature than we currently have, rather lower than the ~15C we currently have. Your "accumulated assets" are temperature (the joules required to set a particular ground/water/air to a particular temperature), while the exchanges are the energy transfers available to each portion of this system based upon their characteristics. Investment banking as an analogy, on the other hand, will lead you to false conclusions. This is not an uncommon error - false analogies. But you have to remember that an analogy, while useful for explaining some subset of characteristics of an unfamiliar system to another person, is not where you can draw conclusions about the original, complex system that you have an analogy to! That's just not sensible. Please, oh please - draw your conclusions in the original system, and limit your analogies to explaining subsets of those systems to others. That will avoid incorrect statements such you present here.
  33. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    A guest blog at Pielke snrs blog, Have Changes In Ocean Heat Falsified The Global Warming Hypothesis? – A Guest Weblog by William DiPuccio (MAY 5, 2009), link, provides a good overview of the issues discussed here The argument that we ought to accept ocean heat, measured in joules, as the gold standard for measurement of global warming - and - that reliable measures of this date from 2004 - and - indicate that global warming has halted seems valid to me. An important role for scientists is to point out which measuring tools are the best available and Pielke snr has led the way here.
  34. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Eli has long recognized that the denialists believe ten impossible (well, contradictory) things before breakfast and they get....annoyed when this is pointed out
  35. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    #33 KR at 02:22 AM on 11 September, 2010 the distribution of cloud cover affects temperature. It's not just cloud cover. I have shown you clouds because they are visible to the naked eye. The boundary of clouds is a special surface in the atmosphere separating regions with above 100% relative humidity from those below it. But all the other surfaces with equal relative or specific humidity are fractal-like. Precipitable water index distribution for North America: Now, let's consider a very simple climate model. There are two layers, the surface and the atmosphere. In such a model atmospheric (absolute) temperature is always 0.84 times lower than surface temperature, because from there half the thermal radiation goes up, half down (and 0.84 ~ 2-1/4). As in this model the path length is fixed, IR optical depth τ is proportional to the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. For the sake of simplicity, let's suppose it is independent of wavelength in thermal IR. In this case absorptivity/emissivity of the atmosphere is 1-e-τ. Also, let the atmosphere be transparent to short wave radiation. If I is the short wave radiation flux at the surface and T is absolute temperature there (and the surface radiates as a black body in IR), then I = (1+e-τ)/2·σ·T4   (σ is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant) It is easy to see for a given SW flux I if IR optical depth τ is increased, T should go up as well. However, let's make the model just a little bit more complicated. Let's have two compartments of equal area over which the sum of GHGs is constant but it may be different between them. That is, in compartment A optical depth is 2τ·cos2φ and in compartment B it is 2τ·sin2φ (the average is τ of course). Also, let the heat transport between compartments be very efficient, so surface temperature T is the same everywhere. In this case the effective optical depth is τeff=-log((e-2τ·cos2φ+e-2τ·sin2φ)/2) Now, τeff happen to have a maximum at φ=45° where GHG distribution is uniform between the compartments and decreases as it is getting more uneven. Therefore a small increase in overall IR optical depth τ due to increased GHG concentration can be compensated for by making its distribution skewed. Water vapor, as a not well mixed GHG is perfect for this purpose. I do not put expression for entropy production here, because it is a bit complicated. But you can figure it out yourself based on radiative entropy flux of a black body being 4/3·σ·T3. Anyway, overall entropy production is also increased by decreasing τeff, so the maximum entropy production principle pushes the climate system toward an uneven GHG distribution whenever it is possible. Note cloud albedo is not taken into account at all in this discussion, only clear sky water vapor distribution.
  36. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    All of your links to WattsUpWithThat seem to link to one page tut-tutting at a picture of a thermometer placement, 'How not to measure temperature, part 22'. Any chance of fixing that?
  37. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    In general changing theories is a good thing especially if the old ones are wrong. "Karl and his colleagues conclude that there is only a one-in-20 chance that the string of record high temperatures in 1997-1998 was simply an unusual event, rather than a change point, the start of a new and faster ongoing trend." http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2000/prrl0002.html But then warming decelerated and that's ok, there's no way Karl could have predicted that. But a skeptical scientist would have acknowledged the likelihood of natural acceleration and deceleration and not proclaimed 95% confidence of 1997-1998 being the "start" of anything.
  38. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    omnologos writes: I very much appreciate the chriscanaris/Ned exchanges. So do I :-) I wonder then if it's a matter of definitions, like with many other things. "The sun isn't causing global warming" means more "whatever the sun has been doing in the past few decades, global warming due to greenhouse gases has been there regardless" than (literally) "the sun is unable to cause global warming". Yes, that's a nice summary of how I would describe it. Solar variation absolutely does have an effect on climate. It's just that in recent decades the sun has not varied by a whole lot [at timescales longer than the usual solar cycle], so its effect has been small.
  39. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    Phil at 03:56 AM, Phil, no I am reading it on the basis that the diagram is merely a budget, and just like a household budget it identifies the inputs and allocations but says nothing about any underlying wealth that is generally represented by accumulated assets those being a combination of both fixed and liquid assets. In this case the accumulated assets are the heat contents of the land and oceans, and that of the atmosphere which most obviously represents the liquid assets, those being the assets that are readily drawn upon to cover any short term variations within the overall budget. For a budget to balance, once an amount has been allocated to one outgoing it is simply not available to another outgoing. In the diagram it is clear that 390 is allocated to the liquid assets. This obviously is excess to that allocated to evaporation and convection which are also allocated to the liquid assets. However 324 is also available from the liquid assets as part of the process attempting to maintain budget integrity by balancing out, or seeking equilibrium. Thus as the 390 was outside that required for the other allocations of 78 and 24, the lesser amount drawn upon,324, cannot logically be available either as it is already utilised to makeup the balance of the 390. If on the other hand the budget showed that the flows were reversed with only 324 allocated to the liquid assets whilst 390 could be drawn upon, then obviously the excess, 66 would be available for the other processes, and the allocations of 78 and 24 would be accordingly higher in order for the budget to balance. In either case, nothing changes with what is available from the liquid assets. But that is NOT the case in the diagram, therefore there is nothing to support the assertion that the back radiation has energy available to input into the evaporation process. I understand that the diagram is a rather simplistic depiction, noting it says nothing about contained energy within the system, nor anything about what drives the processes, it merely attempts to depict the flow from where the energy originates to where it is dissipated, just as a household budget does.
  40. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Not a problem, at least you get to play with an iPad!
  41. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Just perusing the US State of the climate report and noticed that their Fig. 3.7 shows NODC OHC content values decreasing slightly after 2004, whereas the OHC data for PMEL and Hadley both show increases in OHC, especially the Hadley data. So who to believe? At this point, I sure don't know which one is right...and in light of those discrepancies I would certainly not venture to state unequivocally in public that global warming has stopped. Maybe Pielke can explain to us specifically why he chose the NODC OHC data over those data provided by PMEL and Hadley....
  42. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    * puts up hand, looks guilty * sorry, I think thats the second time I've gone and ruined all the links in a guest blog post. Maybe that's what happens when you blog from an iPad :-(
  43. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Looks like we lost the links somewhere in translation there, but I think I got them all fixed.
  44. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    omnologos - Yes, the sun is capable of causing climate change. However, all evidence available indicates that it is not the sole forcing responsible for the warming of the last 150 years (the magnitudes of solar change would require a huge climate sensitivity to those effects, and as no known solar changes correlate temporally), and that small solar variations are superimposed on the much larger CO2 driven warming.
  45. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Links are busted, badly formed - looks like they were created with an HTML editor that had some issues.
  46. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    andreas - I'm not sure about the exact answer to your question, but notice that a 2% change in albedo would simply change the 0.7 to 0.68 or 0.72. In other words, it wouldn't change the solar forcing significantly.
  47. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Lots of broken links in the article, could it be my system?
  48. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Link to "skeptic arguments that contradict each other" is broken. The science is sound. All they have is repeating the same old talking points that have been dis proven again and again. Skeptical Science makes it easier to whack the mole, saves researching the same old stuff again and again.
  49. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    I very much appreciate the chriscanaris/Ned exchanges. I wonder then if it's a matter of definitions, like with many other things. "The sun isn't causing global warming" means more "whatever the sun has been doing in the past few decades, global warming due to greenhouse gases has been there regardless" than (literally) "the sun is unable to cause global warming".
  50. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Ned @144, Just had a look at your numbers. FWIW, they look good to me, although I cannot vouch for the contribution to global SL from glacial melt--although the NSIDC numbers valid up until 2003 may be too low (e.g., Dyurgerov (2002) notes that contribution from glaciers exceeded 2 mm/yr after 2000). Either way, as you say, the heat required/involved is too small to significantly affect the 0-700 m OHC numbers, i.e., explain the slowdown in OHC over the period in question. I'm beginning to appreciate Dr. Trenberth's frustration ;)

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